Giving Context to a Clobber Passage: An Exegesis of 1 Corinthians
6:9-10

1 Corinthians 6:9b is part of a vice list which contains two words that
have often
been taken as a condemnation of homosexual behavior and used to justify
all
manner of discrimination and mistreatment toward gay, lesbian, bisexual
and
transgendered people in our own time. In fact the exact meaning of
these
terms is far from clear; the second in particular is not found outside
the
Pauline corpus and thus cannot be attested to in any independent
source. The
apostle Paul was a product of his day, a Hellenistic Jew of the first
century
C.E. whose writings reveal many of the prejudices that were widely
current in
his milieu, some of which are very much in evidence today. The object
of
this brief exploration will be to examine one passage in the context of
similar references, in order to reveal some of the underlying
assumptions
which contributed to its inclusion in the canon of the New Testament.

Above all it must be remembered that this epistle was addressed to a
Christian community in Corinth, a city on the Grecian coast that had
been
resettled during the previous generation as a Roman resort. The
Mediterranean world in which Paul wrote was a heterogeneous society not
unlike
our own in many ways. Although dominated by the Roman Empire it was,
in fact,
made up of many ethnic groups with different mores and attitudes. In
addition to their reputation for contentiousness and squabbling, the
citizens
of Corinth were known for liking food and wine, extravagant parties and
an
attitude of permissiveness summed up by the slogan ëall things are
lawful' (1
Corinthians 6:12, NRSV). These are some of the concerns that Paul,
with his
strict background as an observant Jew, attempted to address in his
correspondence.

It may be helpful to remember that Paul's letters to Corinth were
public
documents, works of rhetoric intended to persuade and sway his audience
to
certain specific actions. In this particular instance he is calling
them to
account for tolerating what he sees as sexual immorality or
porneia. The
specific incident that Paul refers to is explained in 5:1 as a man
living
with his father's wife. This type of sexual immorality would indeed
have
been deeply abhorrent to a man like Paul who, before his conversion
experience,
was particularly devoted to upholding what he understood as the Law of
Moses.

Going back to the time of David succeeding Saul, it was especially
insulting
for a man to use the wife of his father, but in the patriarchal society
of
the time, vestiges of which linger to this day, the insult was not to
the
woman but to the husband. Honor being a male concept, it was in fact
impossible
to dishonor a woman, who had no status outside her relationship to a
man.
There are indications that some of this traditional understanding was
changing by the time of Paul: under Roman law, women could own
property in
their own names and were able to divorce their husbands. This may, in
part,
account for some of the prominence of women in the early church.

For all of his boasting about his self-control, Paul's writings evince
a
strong distaste for sexuality in general. In light of the imminent
parousia,
Paul's preference would be for the faithful to
remain unmarried and thus in a state of bodily purity to await the
coming
Christ: "To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them
to
remain unmarried as I am" (7:8). We have seen that Paul's notions of
what
constitutes ritual purity were profoundly influenced by his experience
as a
Pharisee attempting to uphold the Holiness Code of Leviticus in his
daily
life. In his book, Dirt, Greed, and Sex, L. William Countryman has
argued
persuasively that the Holiness Code did not merely present a blueprint
for a
world of perfect cleanliness, but rather provided mechanisms for
restoring
purity to a repeatedly transgressing society. The point is not that it
is
ever possible to remain perfectly pure, but that through certain ritual
observances one can temporarily attain a state of cleanliness which
allows
one to worship God in a world of imperfections.

Under Hebrew law, as redacted by the Priestly writers, anything that
crosses
boundaries creates defilement; thus bodily emissions are unclean, and
women
in particular are impure because of menstruation. It is quite clear
that in
the Hebrew Scriptures at least, homosexual acts between men were
considered
unclean, in the same way that certain foods were undesirable. The same
section of Leviticus contains prohibitions against sowing fields with
two
kinds of seed or wearing garments made of two different materials
(19:19).
This may give us some idea of the relative severity of the offence.
Moreover,
the purpose of this often misinterpreted passage is to distinguish
between
the people of Israel and the practices of other nations: by prohibiting
them
the passage tacitly acknowledges their occurrence. Paul's task in much
of
his correspondence is to negotiate his way among the sometimes
conflicting
moralities of the various cultures he desired to reach. Issues of
diverse
practice were ëhot button' items in the newly forming Christian groups,
and
questions of daily living such as who to eat with and how to order the
communal life were hotly debated from Jerusalem to Antioch to Rome.
Indeed,
such controversies have left their marks throughout the Gospels and the
book
of Acts.

In his missionary work, Paul seems to have been proud of his ability to
be
all things to all people, and he chose the specific issue of
circumcision as
being particularly emblematic of his approach. In fact, he spends a
great
deal more time on circumcision than he ever does on sexual relations in
his
extant writings. We know that Greeks did not practice circumcision,
just as
engaged in certain forms of homosexual behavior which Jewish customs
frowned upon. Yet Paul, in this instance, is at great pains to impress
upon
his readers that they should not be anxious about external details.
Let
those who are married stay married, let those who are unmarried stay
unmarried; it is Ok to be circumcised, it is ok to be uncircumcised
(7:18).
None of this matters, ëfor the present form of this world is passing
away'
(7:31). In vv. 32-35 Paul explains his preference for the unmarried
state,
all other things being equal. Because unhindered devotion to God is
the
ideal, all worldly attachments are potentially distracting. This idea
is not
unlike the Buddhist notion of attachment as being a hindrance to the
attainment of heaven. Buddhists practice non-attachment through
spiritual
discipline as a way of freeing their spirits to enter the realm of
heaven;
Paul's idea appears to be similar, and he shares the Buddhist
preference for
celibacy where it is conveniently attainable.

The writings attributed to Paul of Tarsus have a complex history. Like
much
of the New Testament, they circulated independently and were widely
copied in
various collections before attaining their present form. In all
probability
what we call the two letters to the Corinthians were edited together
from
separate fragments that were brought together throughout the second
half of
the first century C.E. One passage that exhibits evidence of this
process is
1 Corinthians 11:2-16. The subject appears to be head coverings, and
it is likely
that the congregation appealed to Paul as an early authority figure for
guidance on
whether women should cover their heads in worship. We can see that
customs
of dress communicated symbolic information concerning status and
placement in
society (as they do today: think of the business suit); unfortunately
the
text itself is far from clear in this instance. Verse ten in
particular
makes very little sense as we have it, but the entire passage is
riddled with
inconsistencies. Nevertheless, there are insights to be gained about
the
changing roles of women which will have implications for the present
inquiry.

While affirming in v. 3 the standard position that the husband is the
head
of the wife, for instance, it also injects a note of more equitable
mutuality
in the formulation "just as woman came from man, so man comes through
woman;
but all things come from God" (v. 12). Again in suggesting that "any
woman
who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head" (v.
5), it
appears to reinforce the prevailing gender hierarchy, yet we can also
glean
from it that it was in fact common for women to pray and prophesy in
public
assemblies!

For millennia, sexism and homophobia have gone hand in hand, and the
Pauline
epistles have been unpopular in LGBT communities for the ways in which
they
appear to lend authority to oppressive and discriminatory treatment of
women
and sexual minorities. Yet a close analysis of relevant passages
reveals a
more nuanced position. Why, for instance, are malakoi included
in 6:9 among
those who will not inherit the kingdom [sic] of God? What is so
threatening
about men who are ësoft' or effeminate? There are religious leaders in
our
own country today who continue to find the presence of those who
subvert or
challenge societal gender norms to be disconcerting.

The fact remains that Paul's Corinthian correspondence puts forth many
innovative ideas about the rights of women. In 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 we
read that
husbands have an obligation to their wives: "the husband should give to
his
wife her conjugal rights...the husband does not have authority over his
own
body, but the wife does." These injunctions are balanced by mutual
obligations on the part of women toward their spouses, and stand in
marked
contrast to the exclusively male-oriented language of the earlier
Leviticus
passage. Even the infamous Romans 1:26 can be read in a ëqueer' way as
evidence of progress for women, by the fact that women are listed
first, and
by their very inclusion. The writers of the Hebrew scriptures did not
even
mention women's sexual practices among all the various permutations of
bestiality and incest in Leviticus 18-20.

In 1 Corinthians 11:14, the writer suggests that it is degrading for a
man to wear
long hair. Likewise in Romans 1:26-27, in an apparent reference to
events
related in the history of Israel, it was ëdegrading' (NRSV) for men to
be
consumed with passion for one another. Certainly it would have been
degrading in the ancient world for men to be perceived as being like a
woman.

The ëunnatural' passions objected to in Romans 1 appear to be part and
parcel with the ënatural' place of women and the ënaturally' short
hairstyles for men in 1 Corinthians 11. But we have already seen that
women's legal
rights had changed in Roman civil code, and the same passage of
Leviticus
18-20 insists that it is ëunnatural' for men to cut their hair! It
appears
to be an enduring human impulse to record the changing customs of the
day in
holy scripture in order to freeze them with the force of divine law.
These
inconsistencies are elucidated not to denigrate the very real respect
we have
for scriptural guidance in daily living, but merely to suggest that
such
specific attitudes have altered over time, and that the overall message
of
God's loving, revelatory call to liberation and self-fulfillment
transcends
the time-related limitations of particular textual reference.

Finally, it may be helpful to place the passage proscribing malakoi
oute
arsenokoitai in perspective according to its usage as a rhetorical
device
within the context of the epistle. The condemnation of men who are
ësoft'
and those who (presumably) sleep with other men is included as part of
a
fairly standard listing of various excessive behaviors. The other
ëwrongdoers' who will not inherit God's realm are the lustful,
idolaters,
adulterers, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers and robbers. It
appears that reference is being made to some of the commandments listed
in
the several versions of the Decalogue, yet it is well to recall that
Paul's
audience here would have been a largely Gentile community in the Greek
city
of Corinth. One must wonder how much force an appeal to a Hebrew Torah
would
have had in such a setting; however, listings of virtues and vices were
a
typical feature of Hellenistic philosophical discourse. In this case,
the
nature of the overall transgression appears to have been one of degree.
In
his repeated condemnations of porneia in chapters five and six,
the essence
of the Pauline objection is that all excessive lust is disrespectful to
God's
creation.

The list in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is the third and most elaborate
formulation in this composition, and the increasing length of the
device
identifies it as a largely rhetorical figure of speech. Thus in 5:9 he
mentions ëthe greedy and robbers, or idolaters;' in 5:11 this grows to
anyone
ëwho is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler,
drunkard, or
robber,' and finally to the expanded version listing specific sexual
misdeeds, including adulterers, the soft or feminine and the apparent
reference to those who lie with men. So we can see that this equivocal
and
offhand mention of possible same-sex activity does not accord it any
special
or extraordinary weight, but rather buries it among a variety of
excessive
practices which may be regarded as hindrances to attaining the realm of
God.
This placement is roughly equivalent to the Leviticus Holiness Code
which
mentions a man who ëlies with a male as with a woman' somewhere between
those
who sacrifice their children to Molech and those who wear tattoos or
visit
soothsayers.

In conclusion, we must note that prejudice against women and those who
were
perceived to act like women was very real in the ancient world, as it
is all
too common in our own society. Such attitudes should not prevent us
from
discerning the word of God for us today or living as we were created to
be
according to our understanding of our nature. Part of the task of
textual
criticism is separating the essential message of the Gospel from the
vestiges
of ancient fear and hatred of that which is labeled different. It is
hoped
that this minor exercise has served in some way to restore a healthy
sense of
perspective as to this important calling, and perhaps has demonstrated
one of
the ways that Scripture may be used both to affirm the goodness of our
lives
as sexual beings, and to identify some sources of the sense of shame
which is
one of the more equivocal legacies of our heritage.